Converting wired ethernet printer to wireless

Dredgy · February 24, 2020

This should be fun. I have a restaurant, which is an amalgamation of three different buildings kind of merged into one as we've expanded and has had very dodgy repair work done. The network setup is HORRIBLE, and I can't make heads or tails of it. The wired network has always been incredibly unreliable (water gets into the wall, and I'm assuming rodents can too and damage wires), the whole place is badly wired, has dirty power etc. Our POS system barely works as is because of initial poor configuration.

Recently, our wired connection to our thermal kitchen printer has failed, which is a fairly serious problem as we can no longer send orders to the kitchen, a fairly important aspect of a restaurant.

Medium term, the solution is to change POS software and have somebody come out and set it up from scratch, but we are in a rural area, and the cost to get someone out here to do it, plus the hardware needed is about $20k.
Re-running the damaged Ethernet cable is not an option due to genius design, I would have to tear down a wall, which would cost a tonne and render a portion of the restaurant unusable for seating. I also can't realistically run it outside of the wall for a few reasons (which could be worked around cheaply, but at a lot of effort).
Powerline adapters are not an option as the server PC and the printer are on completely different circuits.
I have a point of sale terminal close to the kitchen, so I could in theory run a cable from the terminal to the printer, but the terminal only has a spare USB port.

So that leaves me with converting the printer to run over our (rock solid) WiFi connection. The printer is an Epson TM-U220B. It has an ethernet connection ONLY, no USB.

Are there any wireless print servers or bridges that would allow me to connect the ethernet-only printer to Wifi?
Or failing that, to connect it to USB (I'm not sure the POS software supports USB printers, so that could create more problems).

Dedayog · February 24, 2020

There are items like this you can buy...

https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Universal-Ethernet-Adapter-GWU627/dp/B018YPWORE/?tag=aboutcom02lifewire-20&ascsubtag=2377741|n0f460ec5e190458f95fd8850dd16499f13

Forgive me if I don't eat there... you have bigger problems than not getting an order some 15-20 feet to the kitchen wirelessly

"(water gets into the wall, and I'm assuming rodents can too and damage wires)"

Dredgy · February 24, 2020

2 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

There are items like this you can buy...

https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Universal-Ethernet-Adapter-GWU627/dp/B018YPWORE/?tag=aboutcom02lifewire-20&ascsubtag=2377741|n0f460ec5e190458f95fd8850dd16499f13

Forgive me if I don't eat there... you have bigger problems than not getting an order some 15-20 feet to the kitchen wirelessly

"(water gets into the wall, and I'm assuming rodents can too and damage wires)"

Haha it's fine dining and very well known - it's also perfectly hygienic (perfect health inspection scores). We're also fully booked until May so no room for you anyway!

But because it's a collection of buildings that have been poorly joined together to make, there is alot of space between the walls that are accessible somehow.

Rodents do not get into the restaurant itself, but have access to the crawl space (I assume, they might not, but there's a lot of possums in the surrounding woods that get on the roof sometimes).

Thanks for the device, the distance is actual several hundred feet. It doesn't seem to be available in my country, but I will look for something similar.

Dedayog · February 24, 2020

1 hour ago, Dredgy said:

Haha it's fine dining and very well known - it's also perfectly hygienic (perfect health inspection scores). We're also fully booked until May so no room for you anyway!

But because it's a collection of buildings that have been poorly joined together to make, there is alot of space between the walls that are accessible somehow.

Rodents do not get into the restaurant itself, but have access to the crawl space (I assume, they might not, but there's a lot of possums in the surrounding woods that get on the roof sometimes).

Thanks for the device, the distance is actual several hundred feet. It doesn't seem to be available in my country, but I will look for something similar.

Good to know! Glad your restaurant is doing well!

If it's that far, you may need to check your wifi is covering as well. I don't know much running an outdoor cat6 cable would cost, but may be viable depending on country/region.